


Closing the Gap

by braadvengolor



Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Arguing, Conflict Resolution, Established Relationship, Fights, Light Angst, M/M, fellas is it gay to grab your homie by the collar and shove him against a wall?????
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-23
Updated: 2020-10-23
Packaged: 2021-03-09 07:00:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27159695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/braadvengolor/pseuds/braadvengolor
Summary: Eldan and John have spent three days cooped up in this room and they’re starting to go at each other’s throats.
Relationships: Original D&D Character(s)/Original D&D Character(s)
Kudos: 3





	Closing the Gap

**Author's Note:**

> This was an assignment for my creative writing course! I hope you enjoy it :)
> 
> If this looks familiar, I briefly posted it about a week ago but deleted it as I worried about my professor thinking I plagiarized it from myself.

Quiet, the room was quiet except for the tapping. Eldan was tapping his foot against the worn boards of the floor. He stared out the small, dingy window. Outside, a blizzard raged. It had been three days since the blizzard started. Three days trapped in the small, somewhat cramped room they’d rented.

The room wasn’t horrible. The bed was decently soft, the blankets kept out the bitter cold. On the dresser was a bottle of wine. Sitting upright, half empty, with a bright red ribbon tied firmly in a bow around its neck. Next to the bottle of wine was a small collection of candles. The floor was covered in mostly-dried rose petals. 

“Eldan, could you quit the incessant tapping?” 

Eldan turned his shoulders to look at John. John was leaning against the wall, next to the door. He was firmly pinching the bridge of his nose, his jaw tense, his eyes tightly shut. 

“Sorry, too _aggressive_ for you?” Eldan said, a saccharine smile spreading across his face. 

John’s eyes shot open, staring straight at Eldan. His jaw tightened even more. 

“Really? Are we really doing this?” 

“We’ve got all the time in the world to talk about it, John,” Eldan said, his smile dropping. 

He turned the rest of his body to follow his shoulders, his hands now firmly placed on the bed. 

“It’s absurd. I’m not going to let you do it.”

“Isn’t that what you want? To send a message? Don’t you think cutting her open in the square would send a message?”

Eldan made his way across the bed, creeping closer to John. 

“They’ll kill us, right there in the street, before we even get the chance.”

John leaned in closer, steadily decreasing the gap between them. 

“They’re going to kill us anyway, why not go out on our terms?”

The room had been quiet before, but that silence had broken. The howling of the blizzard was indistinguishable, the chatter from the tavern downstairs was drowned out. 

“Is that what you want? To die, cut down by the city guard? You’re willing to die just to stick it to the old baroness?”

Eldan stood up off of the bed, stepping uncomfortably close to John. He grabbed John’s collar in his fist, reducing the gap to mere inches. 

“I want to show the world that they can’t fuck with us,” he said, letting go of John’s collar and shoving him gently back against the wall. 

“And you’re willing to die for that?”

“You aren’t?”

Eldan’s expression softened slightly. He studied John’s face, trying to pick out insincere details. A quivering lip, a lack of eye contact, anything to betray his true feelings. John’s face stayed mercilessly stoic. 

Eldan had a few inches on John, and with his boots on he had a couple more. Standing there, begging John’s eyes to betray the tiniest bit of a falsehood, he felt smaller than he’d ever felt. 

“You know I’d go to the ends of the earth for you, Eldan.”

“You didn’t answer the question,” Eldan said, his voice lowering to a near whisper. 

“It’s not the same and you know it!”

Eldan stepped backward, lengthening the gap between them. 

“Answer the question, John! Would you die for me?”

“Of fucking course I’d die for you! But I won’t let you get both of us killed for petty revenge.”

The room fell silent for a moment. John was breathing heavily, his arms crossed tightly against his chest. The two of them glared at each other. 

“I thought you said this was about more than just us.”

“That was a lie. You know that was a lie. This was always about us, about you!” 

“About me!? That’s rich. That’s fucking rich. What about your family, John? I thought this was about your family!”

“My family aren’t the ones who are going to be _executed_ for lighting a market stall on fire.”

Eldan looked at the ground. 

“It was an accident, John.”

“Come on, who’s a liar now?”

Eldan felt tears brimming in his eyes. His lip quivered. 

“I would never have done it sober.”

“Don’t pretend like you regret it.”

“I do! I do regret it!” Eldan lied. 

There was a significant portion of him that felt that the stall owner had deserved what he got. A few days before Eldan had set the fire, the stall owner had made a crude comment about his relationship with John. Even just remembering it, he winced. The burning shame, the stares of the people around him. He’d been made to feel like a fool. 

“Do you, do you really?”

“Of course I do! It’s nearly gotten me executed!”

Eldan looked back up at John, glaring deep into John’s eyes. Even when he was angry at him, John’s eyes felt soft and inviting. Deep brown, like all the elegant things they’d never be able to afford. The deep brown of the mahogany table the baroness served all her distinguished guests at, the deep brown of the fine chocolates she’d imported from another continent. The deep brown of the leather armor hidden away beneath the bed, waiting for the day they’d strike her down. 

“And gutting the baroness in front of the whole world is going to fix it all?”

“We can’t afford to be cowardly, John!”

“I can’t afford to lose you, Eldan!”

The room went silent once more. It was as if the inn was holding its breath. Even the blizzard outside seemed to pause. 

Finally, Eldan gathered the courage to break the silence, “I suppose that settles it then”

“What do you mean?”

“We can’t do this.”

“All that, and you’re out?”

“You’re right, I admit it.”

“About what?”

“I’d rather be mocked, condemned as a coward until the day I died, than live without you.” 

“You mean that?”

Eldan nodded. 

John hesitated, “well. Where do we go from here?”

“I’ve heard Vixyn is lovely this time of year. Good taverns, good people.”

“Vixyn. The half-elf town?”

“I know a few people from there. It’d be good for us. We could start over.”

“I’d like that.”

Eldan held his arms out, motioning John into an embrace. John quickly pressed himself into Eldan’s arms, hugging him tightly. For the first time in a long time, Eldan felt safe. He felt like he knew what the future held, and it looked bright. Finally, he felt excited by what was to come.


End file.
